New study reveals high rates of Indigenous dementia

Aunty Margaret, an Aboriginal elder from western Sydney, is all too familiar with the signs of dementia.

ABC News

A ground-breaking study has found Aboriginal Australians are three times more likely to suffer dementia than non-Indigenous Australians.

Researchers say risk factors include high blood pressure, obesity, smoking and diabetes, and it is thought the damage to the brain occurs as far back as childhood.

The three-year study into how Aboriginal Australians age, titled Koori Growing Old Well, was conducted across five urban and regional Indigenous communities in New South Wales.

They were La Perouse, Campbelltown, Kempsey, Nambucca and Coffs Harbour and included 336 participants, all over 60 years of age.

Aunty Margaret is an Aboriginal elder from western Sydney. She decided to get involved in the study after her husband John struggled with dementia.

She says his memory problems started 10 years ago and that he also had diabetes and heart disease. He died two years ago, after a heart attack.

"I noticed a difference in his attitude. It wasn't the John that I knew, the John that I married," she said.

"Things I asked him about at the time, he would forget five or 10 minutes later. It was sad.

I noticed a difference in his attitude. It wasn't the John that I knew, the John that I married. Things I asked him about at the time, he would forget five or ten minutes later. It was sad.

Aunty Margaret

"Lights would go on all over the place and I knew when the front door was being opened, so I'd get up and he would be sitting out in the front yard, all dressed, just sitting there."

The study found that Aboriginal people suffer from the same type of dementia as non-Indigenous Australians, with Alzheimer's disease affecting the greatest number of people, followed by vascular dementia.

There was a higher rate of dementia caused by head trauma, but alcohol-related dementia was rare.

Professor Tony Broe, a senior research fellow at Neuroscience Research Australia, led the study.

He says the results confirm earlier research in remote Aboriginal populations, including one in the Kimberley region of Western Australia.

But only about 30 per cent live in remote areas and Professor Broe says research needs to be undertaken in urban and regional areas, where the majority of Indigenous Australians live.

"Aboriginal people in urban areas have a high incidence of many of the risk factors that have been linked to dementia in studies around the world," he said.

"We feel that is sort of just an end result of what is happening to Aboriginal people.

"Why do they smoke too much, why do they get obese, why do they eat more than their non-Indigenous colleagues.

"It's because what happened to them in early life.

"Although Alzheimer's disease is such an organic disease, we believe that the social determinants of growing your brain well are very important."